


Be Still Hear it Beating, It's Leading You, Follow Your Heart

by tomatopudding



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Asexual Character, Asexuality, Coming Out, F/M, Fake relationship becomes real, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Henry Laurens is not as much of a dick as usual, M/M, Pining, homoromantic asexual John Laurens, kisses are as dirty as it gets, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-10
Updated: 2016-02-10
Packaged: 2018-05-19 15:08:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5971384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomatopudding/pseuds/tomatopudding
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Laurens is trying to figure out how to be a teenager. Alexander Hamilton isn't helping. There's a lie and then it becomes the truth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Be Still Hear it Beating, It's Leading You, Follow Your Heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JetGirl1832](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JetGirl1832/gifts).



> I was definitely supposed to be finishing up some Lamsibeth smut that I was working on, but then I was reading some of those fics where Alex and John pretend to be in a relationship for one reason or another and I noticed that it seems to usually be Alex's idea. I starting thinking about a scenario where John was the one who made up the relationship. This just kind of...happened.
> 
> Title comes from "Follow Your Heart" in the musical Urinetown.

John is about to be kissed by Alexander Hamilton. Not that he isn’t thrilled by this prospect, but it certainly isn’t how he imagined his day going. He is about to be kissed by Alexander Hamilton while his father looks on. Definitely an unexpected turn

\---

It all started several months ago when he returned for his final semester at Yorktown High School, the day after his father had--actually it all started much earlier than that. Several years earlier when he first started high school. Freshman year of high school was drastically different from eighth grade. Sure, it was the same school building as Yorktown Elementary and Yorktown Middle, and sure they were all the same classmates he’s been learning with since kindergarten (give or take a few people here and there), but it was high school and there were _hormones_. Boys and girls who had until the previous year merely tolerated each other’s presence were suddenly holding hands and making out in front of their lockers and gossipping about how _what’s-her-face_ was planning on hooking up with _OMG-that-one-guy_.

 

When John expressed his confusion at this turn of events, his father had simply laughed and clapped him overly hard on the shoulder.

 

“Give it time,” Henry Laurens said, “You’ll find that girl who makes you want to do all of those things.”

 

John was skeptical.

 

“How will I know?” he asked.

 

“You just will,” was the explanation, which really didn’t explain anything at all.

 

John friends were a little more helpful.

 

“They just make you feel _right_ ,” Lafayette said, showing off a picture of himself with a girl name Adrienne, whom he had grown up with in France and reconnected with the previous summer.

 

“If they’re the only person you ever see again,” Hercules added, his arm around Elizabeth Sanders’ shoulders, “then the world would be okay.”

 

John considered that he might be defective, unable to feel those feelings of attachment. Some discrete web searching unearthed the term _aromantic_ and John thought that maybe the term could describe him. Then, in the second semester of their sophomore year, Alexander Hamilton transferred to Yorktown High. John took one look at that dark, silky hair that begged him to run his fingers through it and those deep, unfathomable eyes that brimmed with emotion and his whole body breathed a sigh of relief. _Oh. There you are._

 

He didn’t act on those feelings. Henry Laurens was a conservative man and had made his opinions on homosexuality very clear. So John watched from afar as Alex settled into the classroom dynamic. Then he watched from a much closer distance as Alex established himself as part of their little friend group. Alex chattered in French with Lafayette and allowed himself to be used as a mannequin when Herc needed to alter a costume for the school play. Alex was extremely tactile, sometimes overly so, and he had no qualms in draping himself all over John in order to read the computer screen over the other boy’s shoulder or in walking so close that their arms brushed with every step. And each time, each moment of fleeting contact sent a spark through John’s body and his brain would light up with the desire to grab Alex’s hand and never let go.

\---

Time is slowing as Alex’s lips grow closer to his and John’s heart is beating so hard and fast he imagines that his father can hear it. He doesn’t really understand these nerves, it isn’t like this is going to be his first kiss or anything.

\---

In junior year, John dated a senior girl named Martha Manning. He did this partially to try to quell the fact that he wanted nothing more than to keep Alex to himself for the rest of their lives and partially to hear the pride in Henry Laurens’ voice when he said, “my son’s girlfriend.” Martha was sweet and pretty, one of the girls who participated in the school plays but was never quite good enough to get the lead. John met her through Herc, of course. John enjoyed holding her hand and he had never really realized how nice hugging could be, but he didn’t feel _it_ , that elusive feeling that was supposed to show him that he had found his person. Their relationship was extremely chaste, like being back in elementary school where dating someone simply meant eating lunch together every day. Several months into their relationship, Martha invited John to come ‘round to her place while her parents were out of town. John wasn’t ignorant, he understood the implication behind the timing of her invitation, but he didn’t really understand the big hullabaloo his friends made when he told them. He said as much to Martha as they cuddled on the couch, the credits for some romantic comedy scrolling up the television screen.

 

“It’s just putting some body bits into other body bits,” he said with a shrug, “I don’t get the point. Can’t doing _this_ be enough?”

 

Martha was silent for a moment, leaning against John’s side with her arm thrown across his chest.

 

“Maybe you’re asexual,” Martha suggested. John had come across the term during his previous internet searching, but had never really given it much thought.

 

“Maybe.”

 

“What about kissing?” Martha then asked.

 

“I’ve never tried.”

 

Martha sat up with a grin the leaned in and kissed him. It was...nice. John like the close proximity and the feeling of soft lips against his and when he closed his eyes an image of Alex formed unbidden in his mind. When they parted, Martha looked at him expectantly.

 

“I like boys,” John choked out, “Kissing is nice, but I like boys,” the next sentence emerged without him thinking, “I like Alex.”

 

John felt tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. Martha smiled at him sadly.

 

“I thought you might,” she said and then held him while he cried.

 

They didn’t “officially” break up until the end of the school year when Martha graduated.

 

“It was mutual,” he assured his friends when they offered consolation, trying to ignore the flip-flopping of his heart when Alex squeezed him in a tight hug, “We weren’t right for each other.”

 

Henry Laurens was not so easily placated.

 

“Long distance relationships work,” he insisted despite John’s protests, “That girl doesn’t know what she’s missing, giving up a relationship with my son.”

 

After a summer filled with a parade of his father’s friends’ daughters, John returned to his senior year exhausted and more than ready to see his friends again. The return to school didn’t cease his father’s insistence on finding a girlfriend, but John pushed it further to the back of his mind, focused instead in college applications and living with the fluttering in his chest every time Alex smiled.

 

It all came to a head during winter break after yet another evening with yet another family friend accompanied by their single daughter. John was starting to feel like the prince from Cinderella, pressured to find a wife from amongst an approved list. His father was going on about the latest girl, Connie or Carly or something beginning with a C, extolling her virtues, when John’s mouth once again decided to speak without consulting his brain first.

 

“I’m already seeing someone, father.”

 

“What’s her name?”

 

The damned mouth of his at least connected with his brain this time, but only for long enough to spout the first person he was thinking of, practically the only person John ever thought about.

 

“Alexander Hamilton.”

 

Henry Laurens’ face closed into a supremely pinched expression and John could have slapped himself. After the announcement, his father simply walked away.

 

It was remarkably easy to keep Henry Laurens and Alexander Hamilton from meeting and John’s father didn’t appear eager to talk about the elephant in the room any time soon. If they ever were to meet, John knew that his charade would be revealed as a fallacy. John drove himself to school, so there was no chance of Henry catching a glimpse of Alex on school grounds and Alex’s foster parents were nice, but quite strict, so Alex never made his way to the Laurens estate. On the bright side, his father stopped trying to set him up with the eligible bachelorettes of the conservative community. John spent his time at home pretending Alex was his boyfriend--not that Henry ever asked him about it--and he spent his time at school pretending he only wanted Alex as a friend. It made John feel like he was going mad.

\---

Henry is sour-faced but oddly expectant, watching with his arms crossed. Stupid graduation ceremony that brings his stupid dad and stupid--no, not stupid, brilliant and gorgeous and perfect--fake boyfriend into the same room. Then Alex is kissing him and his lips are even softer than Martha’s, but the feeling of _nice_ is multiplied by infinity and John is once more felt with that overwhelming feeling of _oh_ , like coming home after a long and tiring day. The kiss is chaste, simply lips pressed against lips, but John feels his whole world compressed upon this single moment and Alex’s hand rising to cup John’s cheek. The break apart and John is afraid to open his eyes, afraid to see the stormy expression on his father’s face.

 

“He’s gone,” Alex says, “He’s been gone for a while.”

 

“Why did you keep kissing me, then?” John asks, then hurries on to add, “You didn’t have to do that, you know. I’m sorry for telling my dad we were dating.”

 

“Don’t be,” Alex intones softly, his thumb stroking John’s cheek gently, “I just wish you had asked me out sooner. We could have been doing this for years.”

 

John cannot hold the giggle that escapes him, then the words sink in and his eyes widen, “You mean it?”

 

Alex grins and rests his forehead against John’s.

 

“Good thing we’re both going to King’s College.”

 

John leans in to kiss him again.

  



End file.
